the technique itself "does not involve any expensive equipment, and is done at room temperature," said Belcher, the Germeshausen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering.

"To our knowledge, this is the first instance in which microcontact printing has been used to fabricate and position microbattery electrodes and the first use of virus-based assembly in such a process," wrote MIT professors Paula T. Hammond, Angela M. Belcher, Yet-Ming Chiang, and colleagues. [...]

"[African] people want to power [small] DC devices," as opposed to large AC devices like a refrigerator, says Lebônê cofounder Hugo Van Vuuren, a Harvard graduate and a South African native. The team hopes to develop the technology to make it competitive with other renewable energies in countries across Africa. Microbial fuel cells could have a distinct advantage because they are initially cheaper to build than a windmill and easier to set up than solar panels. What's more, they could last up to 10 years, says Lebônê cofounder David Sengeh.